It is commonly known to display items which are for sale in, for example, department stores and convenience stores with the use of a plurality of flat shelves spaced at predetermined vertical distances from one another. These shelves may be positioned in a horizontal or slightly diagonal direction to enable items to be conveniently stored and displayed thereon. It is also known to provide dividers attached to the surfaces of these shelves for further supporting the items placed on the shelves and for separating the items on any particular shelf from one another. These prior art shelving systems are particularly suitable for storing and displaying multiple, non-related items, such as packages, boxes, bottles and cans, having either the same or similar shapes and/or sizes.
Such known prior art shelving systems include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,438 and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,847, which include multiple, diagonally oriented shelves having a plurality of dividers attached thereto. Each of the dividers has a front wall, which provides support to items placed on the shelf, and a side wall, which divides the shelf into different sized compartments capable of storing rectangular or box-shaped items therein. Each divider also includes a ledge which is positioned directly on top of the shelf and which accepts a display item thereon.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,243 discloses multiple, diagonally oriented, wire shelves having wire dividers. These shelves are particularly adapted to store and dispense dairy product containers, such as milk cartons. U.S. Pat. No. 999,974 discloses a horizontally disposed flat shelf having multiple wire dividers located at regular intervals thereon, for use in sorting and storing different types of papers, such as invoices and bills. Still further, U.S. Pat. No. 4,503,982 discloses a dispenser for drinking containers which includes a flat shelf having metal dividers positioned thereon to separate and support cups, lids and straws placed on the flat shelf. This dispenser further includes two angle plates which support the flat shelf above a flat surface and which orient the flat shelf in a diagonal direction with respect to the flat surface.
Other prior art shelving display systems include rack systems, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,474,297 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,923, which include a series of sloping shelves stacked on top of one another. The sloping shelves are separated vertically by risers which also serve to divide each of the sloping shelves into horizontal compartments. These rack systems are particularly useful in storing, displaying and dispensing cylindrical objects, such as cans and bottles.
Although these known shelving display systems allow multiple width, non-related items to be displayed adjacent one another on a shelf, they are considered inadequate for displaying multiple sets of related items, such as photo albums and their associated photo album refills, in an efficient and orderly manner. This is particularly true when the related items are of significantly different sizes and shapes, as are photo albums and their associated photo album refills.
Currently, photo albums and their associated refills are placed on separate, but not necessarily adjacent, shelves, which causes confusion in the mind of a customer as to which refill is associated with any particular photo album, or photo albums and their associated refills are stored horizontally adjacent to one another on a single shelf, which is an inefficient use of shelving space. It is desirable, therefore, to provide a shelving display system capable of displaying photo albums, which come in many different varieties and sizes, in close proximity to their associated photo album refills while simultaneously utilizing a minimal amount of shelving space.